


The Cave

by thebearking



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Mutant Reader, POC Reader, Pining, Reader Of Color - Freeform, Reader-Insert, reader with powers, steve stops himself before he can think any impure thoughts, this is just fluff nothing else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 13:22:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7464933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebearking/pseuds/thebearking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The team is staying at one of Tony's islands. You wake Steve up in the dead of the night to go swimming. As tired as he is, he can't say no to you. Steve's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cave

**Author's Note:**

> kai is featured in this one (if you don't know kai, kai is an agender telepath known as the spectre). reader has pyrokinesis and is biracial (it's just ash but i never mention her name). enjoy!

[this](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/c8/36/85/c836852e1c11b6b9c8feb358fc5adbba.jpg) was the cave i imagined

* * *

He was on a beach, sitting cross-legged in powdery sand. In front of him the water reared back and caressed the shore at a steady rhythm, the waves clear and blue, capped with white foam. The combination of the sun and the breeze kicked up from the water was pleasant on his skin. He looked over to his left and saw you, filling the back of his shield with sand. Why had you even dragged it out here?

“Hey,” he muttered, unable to suppress the smile on his face when you bit your lip, pretending not to hear him. “Hey.” He reached over to nudge you with a hand; you avoided him playfully. He waited for a moment, watching you continue, sitting up on his haunches. Finally he pounced, throwing himself at you and wrapping his arms around your waist, rolling you both into the sand. Your laughter filled the air as you wriggled desperately in his grasp to escape, but he was unyielding. You ended up lying on your back underneath him, your legs bent on either side of his waist, your eyes fixed on his while he smiled down at you. There was sand in your hair. He brushed it away but only made it worse. He could get used to the feeling of your body aligned with his.

“Steve,” you murmured, and the shape your lips made to form his name almost beckoned him to lean in closer, to close the distance and kiss you. He was nearing you slowly when you said his name again, and again, louder, louder, until your voice was deafening in his ears—

_“Steve!”_

He awoke with a slight start to find you standing at his bedside, your hands raised defensively. He was in his bed in his room at Tony’s beach house. It was dark, save for the dim light provided by the lamp in the corner of the room. Steve sat up with a groan.

“Hi,” you mumbled sheepishly.

“Jesus, what time is it?” he grumbled, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

You glanced at his clock. “Uh, midnight.”

Steve squinted at the clock himself to confirm. His brow furrowed. “That is definitely a two and not a twelve.”

You shrugged. “Eh, midnight, two in the morning, same thing.” You took his hands in yours, grinning broadly. “Put on your swimsuit, Cap.”

Steve’s brows shot up toward his hairline. “What?”

“Let’s go swimming!” you exclaimed, shaking his hands wildly. “You heard Tony, the caves look beautiful at night!”

Steve tried not to frown under your hopeful gaze. The water in and and around the caves was deep; he knew you weren’t the biggest fan of the sea, let alone the best swimmer. At the lagoon this morning, you had stayed with Kai in the shallows, only venturing into deeper water when you enlisted Thor—who’d apparently been the biggest guy around—to carry you. Steve figured that two Californians such as you and Kai would have learned to swim in the twenty years you’d lived there, but if you were as poor a swimmer as Kai claimed to be… “Are you a strong swimmer?”

You shook your head, but the grin on your face never faltered. “Nope! But I know you’ll keep me from drowning, right, Cap?”

O.K., now Steve  _did_  frown, because you were giving him those eyes that made even Kai powerless to your command: those big, brown doe eyes, blinking up at him with those impossibly long lashes, that bottom lip poking out in the most irresistible pout… He sighed heavily, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “Fine.”

You clapped your hands excitedly before nearly jumping into his lap to hug him. “Thank you, Steve!” you squealed, squeezing him firmly. Steve didn’t even have time to reciprocate before you pulled back, still holding his huge hands in your tiny ones, still beaming down at him. His ears felt warmer than the rest of his body; he thanked the universe that it was too dark for you to see his blush. “Meet me downstairs in five,” you told him. With that you spun around and hurried, practically skipped, out the door and down the hall toward your room.

Steve yawned, shaking his head in disbelief. Many times Kai, Bucky, Sam, and Natasha had called him out teasingly for being unable to resist you. He couldn’t say no to you, even in the field when you insisted on joining him in the heart of battle. Just last week you had convinced him to skip his morning jog, bake slutty brownies for breakfast, jump into Tony’s pool fully clothed, and pull an all-nighter to watch four seasons of your favorite show. He’d even let you throw his shield around and nearly decapitate an unsuspecting Kai in the process. He could deny it all he wanted, but maybe he really was as much of a pushover as everyone said.

He rolled his shoulders to stretch, yawning again. He shucked off his sweatpants and shimmied into a pair of swimming trunks, tying the drawstrings off at his hips. He debated briefly whether or not he should keep his T-shirt on, but a devilish part of his psyche encouraged him to strip out of it and give you a show. He gave in heedlessly. He grabbed an underwater flashlight from one of the drawers in his nightstand, slipping it into his pocket and heading down the hall, closing his bedroom door behind him.

When Steve arrived at the bottom floor, he found you nowhere in sight. He turned this way and that, wondering if you were hiding from him. You hated being scared yourself but, boy, if you didn’t enjoy popping out and scaring Steve in the halls back at HQ. It was embarrassing, but as long as you were enjoying yourself, he could bear it. He finally saw you through glass doors, standing in the pathway at the front of the house. You were fiddling with something in your hands—a flashlight, which you were turning on and off repeatedly. It warmed his heart to see you so prepared.

He went outside to meet you, stopping when he was a few steps away from you. “Hey,” he called out.

You jumped slightly and turned to face him, switching the flashlight off. He winced, hating to startle you, but when you saw him the grin was back on your face and he didn’t feel so bad anymore. You looked beautiful, illuminated in the lawn lights lining the stone pathway. Your hair was pulled back in a huge puff at the top of your head, drawing Steve’s attention immediately to your face. Your skin appeared to glow, and there was a lot of it on display, Steve noted. You were in a different bathing suit than the one he’d seen this morning; this wasn’t the revealing black two-piece that had left him a spluttering mess in the sand. This one was a white bikini, one which appeared fluorescent in the current lighting and still left him speechless. He was studying you so intensely that he almost missed the little onceover you gave him. His heart fluttered in his chest. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but you apparently saw his struggle and helped him out a bit.

“Good thinking,” you remarked, indicating the flashlight sticking out of his pocket. “I know it’s supposed to be bright in the caves but I figured you can never be too careful.” You stepped up to him, looping your arm through his and starting off down the path. “I’ll try and light up too when we’re underwater.”

Steve nodded. You held on to his left arm with your right one, your hand clutching his bicep. He considered flexing it for you—he knew how much you loved, in your own words, “a tasty set of arms”—but decided against it. When he relayed this story to Bucky the next day, he was sure his best friend would scold him for not following through. “You know where the caves are, don’t you?”

You scoffed. “Of course. Tony showed me the way earlier.”

His arm tightened out of its own volition. When had he begun to feel so jealous of Tony, or of Thor for that matter? He had no reason to feel that way: the team was composed mostly of men, so you were bound to be alone with one eventually, and you weren’t even his girl. It shouldn’t affect him so much. Still, the image of Tony leading you away from the group, his hand at the small of your back, his smile dripping with charisma and fortune, promising to keep you safe and secure… It set his blood boiling. “Oh, yeah? And you remember the way?”

You shoved him with your hip; he allowed himself to be moved by you, knowing how adorably irritated you got when he proved immovable. “I’m positive. Trust me, will ya?”

Steve glanced over at you, smiling softly. “I do. Lead the way.”

You grinned and did just that, leading him down to the beach. The beach was farther from Tony’s place than the lagoon was, and the caves were even farther down. Despite the trek, Steve enjoyed your company, the warmth you provided as you pressed into his side. The night air was cool but not much more than the temperature had been during the day. There were no stars out today, only a large and luminous moon. Steve wished there were stars, knowing how much better they’d look out here instead of in the polluted New York sky. He knew you liked star-gazing but also hated it, that it made you feel small but also special in the wide and expansive universe.

You stumbled a little in the sand, but Steve was quick, his arm encircling your waist and holding you up against him before you could fall. “Careful!” he warned, looking down at you with an amused expression. You poked your tongue out at him like a child and wiggled out of his grasp, holding onto his arm with one hand as you led him toward the caves.

The two of you paused where the shore ended and the rocky cliffside began, a short drop-off leading finally to the water. You frowned. Steve noticed your pained expression and nudged your hip with his hand. “Everything O.K.?” he asked, his brow notched with concern.

“The rocks are gone,” you grumbled. “When Tony brought me here today, there were rocks leading halfway to the caves. I was hoping that might have been the highest point of the tide today.”

Steve frowned with you. The idea of spending the entire journey swimming in open water must have made you nervous. Hell, it made him nervous. He saw you take a step closer to the edge of the sand bar. He tugged you back; you looked up at him questioningly.

“Let me go look,” he said, procuring his flashlight. You released his arm, watching him nervously as he sat down on the end of the bluff. You held your breath as he pushed himself off of the edge—

And stood chest-deep in water. You sighed in relief.

Steve flashed you a reassuring smile. “Should be able to stand here, kid. C’mon in; I gotcha.” He held his arms up to you invitingly.

You grinned and shimmied down the face of the rock into Steve’s arms. He lowered you gently into the water, trying to ignore the feeling of your warm, supple body against his chest while enjoying it immensely all the same. By the time your feet hit rock, you were up to your neck in water. You stood on tiptoe and stepped out of Steve’s arms, tipping your head back and observing Steve defiantly. His mouth was twitching with the urge to laugh. “Not another word,” you muttered, pointing the flashlight at him accusingly.

Steve bit down on his lip to stifle his mirth. “You got it. Want me to go first?”

You shook your head. “I’ll do it. Then you’ll be able to see me if I fall in.”

Steve nodded in agreement, vowing silently to prevent you from so much as stumbling. You turned on your flashlight and began to pick your away toward the caves, making sure you could clearly see each rock before taking another step. The water was mostly still, save for a few gentle waves which lapped at Steve’s abdomen and came close to engulfing you up to your chin. Each time you appeared unsteady, his arm was there around you, righting you immediately. “Thanks,” you would mumble quickly. He worried that he was embarrassing you.

About halfway to the caves you two had apparently reached the end of the rock trail. Steve’s heart seemed to stop in his chest when he saw your head suddenly slip beneath the surface. In the split second you were underwater, Steve had his arms around you, hauling you up to him and holding you against him on the final rock of the trail. You came up coughing, your mouth having filled with water.

“Thanks,” you whispered, peering up at him from beneath the wet curtain your hair had formed when you went under. Steve nodded, feeling you heating yourself back up to your original temperature.

“Y’know, maybe this wasn’t the best idea,” he murmured, smoothing your hair back from your forehead.

You scoffed, pulling back just slightly to look up at him; his arms remained around your waist. “We’ve come this far, Steve. I’m making it to those sea caves one way or another.”

Steve and you realized at the same time that when you fell in, you’d lost your flashlight. Steve offered you his, but you refused. “I’ll light up instead,” you insisted. “To the caves!” Before he could stop you, you took a deep breath and slipped into the water, paddling away.

Steve sighed and slid his flashlight back into his pocket, inhaling deeply before pushing off the rock and swimming after you. He saw your body take on a luminous golden-red color, flames flickering just beneath your skin. You looked like an angel, or a demon, or a mermaid, come to drag him off into the deep. He had a feeling that if you were such a creature, he’d follow you willingly.

You came up for air before he did, needing more oxygen to continue your little display. Steve stopped swimming, suddenly faced with your torso as you treaded water. He came up beside you, arms sweeping to keep himself afloat, watching you carefully.

“All good,” you said finally, grinning at him before ducking back under, your skin aglow once again. Your light alone was enough to lead the way all the way to the caves. Steve looked below him and saw the ocean floor nearing the surface, becoming shallower and shallower until both he and you were able to stand, trudging out of the water and into the cave.

The roof of the caves hid the moon from view, leaving you both in mostly darkness. You released your hair from your ponytail and let it swing freely around your shoulders. It was always fascinating to see your hair hanging instead of floating in its usual ’fro.

“After you,” said Steve, poking your hip. You poked him in the ribs before holding your hand out expectantly. He handed you the flashlight. You held out your other hand. Steve frowned, confused. You rolled your eyes and took his hand in yours, flicking the flashlight on and padding along into the cave.

Steve swallowed, trying not to smile giddily. Your hand was warm and dry in his as you pulled him along. He eventually fell into step beside you, wanting to be next to you again. You held onto his arm again; he thought he saw you smile as you pressed into his side like you had before on the beach.

The ceiling was low, low enough that Steve had to hunch over a bit to keep his head from skimming the top. Eventually, you two arrived at a passage much narrower than the one from which you had entered. You released Steve’s arm and entered the passage sideways, gasping when the rock scraped your thighs. A tight fit, apparently. Steve tried not to blush when he remembered that both you and Sam had talked about how “Jesus made you thicc for a reason—‘thicc’ with two  _c_ ’s.”

“C’mon, Cap, suffer with me,” you hissed through gritted teeth.

Steve slipped in behind you, or rather, next to you, sucking in his stomach as the two of you edged along the passage. It was a snug fit for him too, but much less so for him than for you. “See anything ahead of you?” he asked when the two of you had been squeezing along for two minutes or so.

You were already out of the slit by the time he finished his question. “Come see for yourself,” you said, your voice taking on a lighter note. Steve grinned at how delighted you had become and joined you in the cave.

It was huge, way larger than he had expected, and the ceiling was much higher than the first passage. The sand gave way to water one one side of the cavern, where the roof was carved away and formed two individual arches, revealing the pale beach beyond. Steve thought he could even see the beach house lit up from so far away.

“Steve, look!” He turned back to see you pointing up at the roof, a delighted grin on your face. The moon was visible through a hole in the ceiling, illuminating both you and Steve in the cavern below. Drenched in moonlight like this, you were stunning. Your silvery, moonlit appearance contrasted with the golden-red of your body earlier in the water, and Steve loved it. You set the flashlight down on the sand and began to study the entire cave, starting at the far wall.

“Didn’t know you like caves so much,” Steve quipped, walking toward the cave opening. He stopped until the waves sloshed around his ankles and turned so he could watch you. You were scurrying back and forth like a child, feeling every square inch of the cavern wall.

“Guess you don’t know that much about me, huh, Steven?” you teased right back.

Steve watched you silently, his hands in his pockets. He knew a lot of things about you. He knew that you overheated at night and kept your bedroom at a constant temperature of 50 degrees Fahrenheit, just so you could sleep under the covers comfortably. He knew that you hoarded his shirts and that you thought he hadn’t noticed the number of sweaters and button-downs disappearing from his laundry. He knew that though you insisted there were Under Armor shirts in his size, you secretly liked seeing his torso clearly defined beneath the material. He knew that your favorite suit of his was the navy blue stealth suit, and he had to admit that it was his personal favorite, too. He knew that you were good with kids but terrified of accidentally burning them, so you left the kid-handling to Sam and Natasha out in the field. He knew that you washed your hair twice a week with almond mint conditioner, the smell of which he associated solely with you. He knew that you owned at least five Captain America shirts, two of which you had only worn around Kai; he’d wondered numerous times what could make those shirts so indecent, but the thought of you wearing his symbol alone stirred something deep in his core. He knew that you were confident in your body and in the way you looked, that you called your stretch marks “tiger stripes” and your thick thighs “personal hand-warmers” (“Ear-warmers,” Kai had added lecherously). He knew that you put your all into your workouts and enjoyed sparring with Steve most of all, that you never went easy on him but refused to burn him. He knew that you were terrified of the open ocean but somehow felt safe with Steve, even in deep water. He knew that you fell asleep on the quinjet after most of the missions and that you thought Natasha was the one to carry you back to your room each night, not Steve; he had asked Nat to take that credit the first time, in fear of making you uncomfortable. He knew that you liked whenever Bucky called you “doll” and that according to Bucky, you wouldn’t mind at all if Steve called you that, too. He knew that you only called him “Cap” and never “Captain,” because, according to Sam, it made you blush uncontrollably. He wished just once to hear you call him by the full title, but at the same time he worried it would affect him just as strongly. He knew that you were curious about his life before WWII and that you had so many more questions than you had already asked him. He knew that you thought he was the best cuddler on the team, because in your own words, he held you with his entire body, making you feel safe and secure. He knew that you moved around a lot in your sleep, and so whenever the two of you shared a bed, he held on to you firmly, falling asleep with the intent of never letting go.

He knew so much about you, and yet he couldn’t figure out if you felt the same way, if his feelings were requited. He shook his head at his own incompetence, watching as you stood on your tiptoes to feel the roof at the shortest part of the cavern. Your whole body stretched with the effort, and Steve allowed his eyes to travel down the entire length of you, from the well-defined contours of your back and shoulders to the curve of your waist to the flare of your hips and down, down your muscular thighs to your shapely calves and back up again. You were a mixture of sinew and softness, with some parts of you toned from training and other parts of you forever squishy to the touch. He padded across the sand and came to stand beside you, reaching out to run his hands up the ribbed wall of the cave, glancing over at you every now and then. He couldn’t keep his eyes off you.

You grinned and settled back on your heels, turning to lean your back against the wall and face the water, your eyes filled with wonder. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Steve wondered if this cave made you feel big or made you feel small. He wondered if he made  _you_ feel small, because you made him feel tiny, as tiny as the man he used to be. He hoped that, by contrast, he made you feel as a big and as full as the universe itself. He followed the ribs of the cave wall up to the ceiling before looking at you again, his heart skipping a beat at the mere sight of you. He looked at your lips, curved in a smile; at your hair, stray curls framing your face; at your elbows, dotted with sand; at your neck, still gleaming with water.

His eyes were trained on you as he replied, “It really is.”


End file.
